Boney Bits are Bad

Trying to convince my husband that the bone from his recently demolished Eisbein should not be fed to Bakkies (our Jack Russell) is a painful process. They both look at me with traitorous disbelief and watch as I throw it away into the bin. We have a firm stance on feeding bones to dogs here at Longmarket Vet Clinic because we have seen what terrible harm comes of it. We receive remarkable comments from Owners like: “It’s just chicken bones that you must worry about” and the classic mantra :”I’ve been feeding him bones for years” which makes us realise that the general awareness amongst pet owners requires attention. Yes, it is not to say that your emergency afterhours vet visit to us is a guarantee but we cannot stress enough that when a bone does get lodged how massively painful the process is, both for your four legged family and for your wallet. I say “when” because the Owners that continue to feed bones to their dogs will be requiring our services in the definite future. It’s just a matter of time. My favourite replacement for the “good old fashioned” dog bone is a chew toy we got from Rogz. It has a small cavity on the inside where you may pop in a few treats. As Bakkies frantically chews away on the plastic toy he progressively nibbles out bits of the treat which, if you choose wisely, have a world of health benefits and it delivers the same kind of stimulation that a dog bone would.

Here is a short article I came across www.thedogfiles.com/2010/04/22/fda-dont-give-your-dog-bones-of-any-size-2